Mastery Challenge February Round-up: Salt Preserving

February has drawn to a close and so it’s time to wrap up the second round of the Food in Jars Mastery Challenge. I continue to be so honored and delighted that so many of you are going along with me on this crazy journey!

This month, we focused on preserving with salt and so many of you spent your time exploring the many options. There were 325 of you that submitted projects to the spreadsheet (down from last month’s 600-ish number, but still great). I think it’s safe to say that even more of you attempted preserved citrus, gravlax, cured eggs, soup base, herbes salées, sauerkraut, and more than reported it.

I loved seeing the positive trend in feelings about salt preserving. We only scratched the surface of a very deep food preservation tradition and I do hope that some of you keep exploring this area.

I used some of my Vegetable Soup Base for the first time yesterday. I added a couple of heaping tablespoons to a small pot of simmering water, dumped in a box of rigatoni, and let it simmer till just shy of al denté. Then I tossed in a handful of frozen green peas, took it off the burner, and let it sit for a couple of minutes. No need to strain it through a colander because most of the flavorful broth had absorbed into the pasta! I just scooped a big serving into a bowl, topped it with some grated Parmesan, and YUM !!

Oops, I missed the submission too! I made pink sauerkraut (with beets) for Valentine’s Day, as well as a batch of preserved lemons. I have not used the lemons yet, but I look forward to trying one of your suggested recipes.

I love your idea to preserve eggs and if I ever get any more duck eggs from my local organic nursery I will be doing that.

I also like the idea of the herbed salts and may try that next.

My copy of Salt Sugar Smoke by Diana Henry arrived today and I love it. There are several things in there I am going to try. Thanks for reminding me it was on my amazon list. I also bought her book Plenty. It has some recipes for using preserved lemons.

Dang it. Looks like I also cut the deadline too close. This is such fun – trying projects and methods that might have previously seemed a little intimidating. I’d had the idea for a while and finally ended up making it: Gin Spiced Gravlax. (https://spiritedbites.wordpress.com/2017/02/27/gin-spiced-gravlax/) Not with actual gin, so definitely in the salt preserving category, but rather flavored with some of the same spices used to make gin.

This months challenge was so rewarding! I made a trio of citrus salts and it couldn’t have been easier. I’ve already used the lime in a cake and a sprinkle of lemon on my afternoon apple. Thank you for including my post in the round up!

This and every month you give us a Dictionary of Sites to visit. I so love looking at everyone’s recipes and Websites. thank you again Looking forward to March I am a Jam maker and Jelly will be so out of my norm! xoxo

Weird. I submitted my soup base, but I don’t see the link to it. Will you include every link or do you pick and choose? The link was up in January, which is why I ask. Thanks for hosting this crazy challenge; I’m enjoying it!

Eek! I submitted this month but I’m not sure it got processed… got a wonky error message when I submitted. I’m not sure if this is the full round-up of links or just highlights…. if the former, it definitely didn’t go through. Oh well. *I* know I’m still on track.